


Tired Old Moon

by ThirdGenerationRockette



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-Series, aka the one where I did a terrible thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 22:06:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13797288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThirdGenerationRockette/pseuds/ThirdGenerationRockette
Summary: She wonders how a month can feel like forever. One month, four short weeks, twenty nine long days. Is this is how it will always feel? Each day stretching out before her like a marathon, the nights even worse, every one a long, dark endurance test.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Ella Fitzgerald's _Goodnight My Love_.

**Twenty Two Minutes**

They walk into the kitchen, just back from their walk, and she starts to clear the dishes as he goes to hang up their coats. They walk every morning after breakfast, because she likes to start her day with some air, and she likes to know he's starting his with some exercise. At his age, and probably at hers too, if she's honest, a slow stroll is better than nothing at all. She likes to hold his hand too, just as she has for almost forty years. It still feels warm in hers, solid and comforting, and she knows that young people smile at them because they're one of _those_ older couples ("look at the cute old couple holding hands"), but she doesn't care. When she holds hands with Will she doesn't feel seventy five, she feels young again, it reminds her of when they were first engaged and she couldn't stop reaching for his hand, simply because she could after so long when it wasn't an option.

He walks back into the kitchen and squeezes her shoulder as she runs the water, smiling in the way that tells her she knows she's been caught daydreaming, as she so often does these days.

"You know, I don't feel too good." He rubs his forehead and she reaches up, pulling his hand away and resting her hand against his skin.

"You do feel a little hot, honey," she says, frowning at him in concern. "Why don't you go and lie down?"

"Alright." He sighs. "Just for a little while maybe."

"Yeah, just for a little while, wouldn't want you sleeping the day away," she says, smiling at him. "I'll bring you in some tea."

"Thanks." He kisses her cheek softly, smiling back. "I do love you."

He disappears down the hallway and she cleans up the breakfast dishes, glances at the paper, and makes tea, adding honey to his to hopefully head off whatever he may be coming down with. Shaking two Tylenol out of the bottle on the kitchen counter, she picks up his mug and heads towards the bedroom. It's instantaneous, the feeling she gets as she walks into the room, she can't put a name to it but it overwhelms her, crawls slowly up her spine and moves across her chest. She feels the Tylenol drop to the carpet and she manages to put the mug down on the closest surface before closing the distance between the door and the bed, scrambling up beside him and laying a hand on his chest.

"Billy..." She hears a voice that doesn't sound like her own, hollow and too quiet.

There's no rise and fall, no movement at all, no breath coming from his body and the familiar sound he makes when he sleeps is painfully absent. The only sound she hears is her own breathing, fast and panicked, and the distant sounds of traffic outside, muffled through the rush of blood pounding in her ears.

Her hand moves to his face, stroking softly down his cheek, her thumb running gently across his bottom lip. He's warm, but he's so very still, so completely silent and she knows it's too late, she knows he's gone but she doesn't know quite what to do next. She thinks she should call the doctor, that someone should come and do whatever doctors do in these situations, but she also knows that when they come they'll take him away and she's not ready for that, not yet. Not ever.

Instead she calls Thomas and somehow manages to tell him his father has gone, asks him to call the doctor. She calls Henry, her baby, and tells him the same thing, her heart breaking as she repeats the words, asking him to please call his brother and figure things out between them.

She knows they'll be here soon, she and Will have two good boys, good men, and they'll be here soon with the doctor and then she'll have to say goodbye. Until then, she's going to hold onto him as tightly as she can. Sliding her fingers between his she squeezes so hard she can barely stand it, but she can't bring herself to let go.

She holds his hand for twenty-two minutes.

 

**Seven Days**

I’m so sorry. How are you feeling? He was such a wonderful man. I’m so sorry. How are you feeling? He was such a wonderful man.

It feels like a stuck record, looping over and over, on and on.

Thank you. Like I’m walking slowly through a bad dream. Yes, yes he was, he was the most wonderful man in the world and I want to fucking scream because he’s gone.

Of course, what she actually says is 'thank you, I’m ok, yes he really was, thank you'.

For five days she sits on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket, letting endless cups of tea go cold on the table in front of her, listening to her two sons field constant phone calls from well-meaning friends, colleagues, acquaintances. She keeps finding herself at the dining room table, pushing food slowly around her plate, feeling the eyes of her children on her but thankful for them not pushing her when she stops after a few bites and pushes the remaining food aside. In bed, she holds on to his pillow and tries not to think about the day when his scent eventually fades, instead breathing it in, rolling onto his side of the bed and clutching the sheets tightly, as though she can bring him back through sheer longing. She naps, she dozes, but she doesn’t sleep. How does a person sleep alone after almost forty years with someone else beside them?

On day six, Thomas sits beside her and takes her hand. She looks up at him, so tall like Will, his eyes just like his father’s, so blue and clear, soft yet full of determination. They’re so different to look at, her boys, each like a carbon copy of their parents, one blonde, one brunette, both blue- eyed but Henry’s are darker, with a ring of hazel, always being mistaken for brown, just like her own. She knows she and Will have brought up two good and kind men, and she’s proud of that, and she knows Will was too. She remembers his fear when they found out they were having a boy, his worries about raising a son, his quiet confession one night that nothing scared him more than the thought of failing at what they were about to do. She reminded him that his greatest successes came when he was afraid of failure and she was right, he was a wonderful father to Thomas, and there was no fear by the time Henry came along. By then, Will was proving daily that he was a natural, despite his worries.

“Mom?” Thomas’s voice breaks into her thoughts.

“Sorry, yes, I was…” She stops, trying to smile at him, biting her lip when she feels it start to quiver.

“I was just asking if you’re going to be okay for tomorrow.” He pauses, continuing when she nods. “Henry and I wrote something, we thought we’d both…I mean, we thought we’d give the eulogy together, if that would be okay? What do you think?”

“Oh, sweetheart.” She does manage to smile faintly now. “I think he would have loved that.” 

“Good.” He nods, squeezing her hand. “Good.”

“Can I read it?” she asks. “What you wrote?”

“Will you be taking your red pen to it?” He nudges her shoulder gently.

“I’ll try not to,” she murmurs, her attempt at a smile failing as she hears the tremor in her voice. 

“Then alright,” he says. “You can read it.”

“How do I do this, Tom-Tom?” She hasn’t called him that since he was small but he doesn’t flinch, he just smiles at her.

“Tomorrow? We’ll all be there, Mom, we’ll do it together,” he says, so calm, his voice so like his father’s. “You won’t be on your own.”

“I know that.” She swallows hard, the thought of the service tomorrow almost too much to bear. “I just…I don’t want any of this to be real, I don't want him to be gone.”

“Oh Mom, I know.” When Thomas puts his arm around her shoulders, she realises how tired she is, how much she misses Will’s arms around her already, and it’s only been a few days.

As the reality sinks in that tomorrow she will be saying goodbye, she rests her head against her son’s shoulder and lets herself cry.

 

**One Month**

She wonders how a month can feel like forever. One month, four short weeks, twenty nine long days. Is this is how it will always feel? Each day stretching out before her like a marathon, the nights even worse, every one a long, dark endurance test. Their bed no longer smells like him, and yesterday she bought five bottles of his shower gel because she needs something that does. She's scared she's going to forget what he smells like, what he _used_ to smell like (her heart breaks anew every time she has to remind herself that he's in the past tense now), how it felt to lie in his arms, the warmth of his hand in hers.

His drawers have stayed closed, she has avoided looking in his side of the closet, although oddly his things in the bathroom give her an unexpected comfort, his comb on the shelf and his toothbrush still sitting in the cup above the sink, beside hers as always. There were plenty of people offering to help her go through his things, Sloan even offered to do it for her completely if she couldn't face it, but this is something she wants to do alone, _needs_ to do alone.

Flicking the TV on to ACN and taking a deep breath, she reaches for the closet door and pulls it open, sighing as she sees his clothes hanging there like nothing has changed at all. Almost immediately she wants to close it again because this is where his scent still lingers, and she shuts her eyes for just a second as it washes over her. She wants so badly to slam the door and never let it escape, to know that when she misses him most she can climb inside the closet and breathe him in. Using all the strength she has, she opens the door wider and pulls out the first of his sweaters, blue of course, so many of them are blue, he always looked his most handsome in blue. Folding it carefully, she strokes her hand across it and remembers how it felt against her skin all the nights she curled up next to him as they watched TV, soft against her cheek, warm under her fingertips.

The last of the sweaters is folded and her hand is on a flannel shirt when she hears his name, confused at first before she remembers having turned on the news, for background noise and because ACN is her touchstone, her comfort. It was her home, _their_ home, for so long, their sons ran around her office as small boys and grew up watching Will on the TV in there, or sometimes in the control room with Uncle Jim, and she feels safe with the sound of ACN in her ear even if her eyes aren't on the screen. Stepping back to sit on the end of the bed, she forgets the shirt in her hand and pulls it with her, hanger and all, dropping it to the floor as she turns her attention to the TV. It takes a few seconds but she realises she's watching a wrap up of some of the news stories from the month, and when Will's face fills the screen she's suddenly unable to focus, his image blurring until she swipes furiously at the tears brazenly attempting to cloud her vision.

_ACN's flagship news hour for almost thirty years...his wife Mackenzie McHale, who later became the network's president...breaking the news to America...for his sensitive coverage of the Sandy Hook shootings in 2012...a great man and a fine journalist...ACN will miss him._

Snippets of the report penetrate the fog surrounding her, but she can't seem to process anything other than Will looking back at her from the screen, moving now from a still photo to a video clip. Standing slowly, she steps over to the TV and reaches out, her hand coming to rest where his shoulder sits towards the bottom of the screen, a tiny smile pulling at her lips when she realises she's looking at the Bin Laden broadcast from almost forty years ago. Her wonderful, eloquent husband (not that he was then, they still had some way to go at that point), sharing such important news with the nation, calmly and with total grace, all whilst as high as a kite.

"I love you, you big idiot," she laughs through a sob, watching as his face fades from the screen and they move on the next story.

Bending down to pick up the discarded shirt, she carries on, holding his shirts close, one by one, before she folds them and adds to the pile, trying to recall the last time he wore each of them, if he wore a sweater over, where they were going...until suddenly she reaches in to find his side of the closet is empty, she's done. They're just clothes. Logically she knows they're just clothes, but they were _his_ clothes and she feels each day like there is less of him left for her to hold onto, and maybe that's the way it's supposed to be as time goes by, but it feels strangely like losing him all over again.

Unable to face starting on the drawers and suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion and a fresh wave of grief, she finds his favourite blue sweater, still soft to the touch, hugs it to her chest and climbs into bed. For now, everything else can wait.

 

**Six Months**

She's been into the study since he's been gone of course, to check emails and to browse online when she needs something mindless, something to distract her from the never ending days. Sometimes, if she's feeling strong, she reads his newspaper columns, all filed on the computer, and printed out too, sorted neatly into a folder. She knew when he retired he wouldn't be able to just stop (although he got better at it once she retired too six years ago), and she remembers the day she came home and he told her he'd been asked to write for the New York Times, surprise and pleasure written across his face. He was the only one who doubted his ability to do it, she knew he could write, and write really well, and she told him exactly that, smiling now as she remembers his reaction ("Yeah, well, I guess if it's really shitty you can just rewrite it for me.").

Today though is the first time she's in here opening up the large cabinet in the corner of the room, dragging out the crate of photos stored inside. She made an attempt yesterday but got no further than opening the door and staring at it, willing herself to just move it, to open the lid but finding it impossible, eventually sighing angrily at herself and leaving the room.

He always used to laugh at her need to be surrounded by photos, to frame them, to print them, to constantly rotate the ones on display. She would insist on pictures wherever they went, documenting the big things, the small things, the silly things, and the house is full of frames to show them off. Their wedding photos, their slightly goofy grins reminding her of the adrenaline fuelled pace of the day, fear of what was to come mingling with happiness in both of their smiles. Photos of the boys, Thomas aged five with his shiny red bike, Will's smile almost as wide as his son's. Henry on his first day of school, Mackenzie pretending she was totally fine that her baby was about to join his big brother, her overly bright smile giving her away to anyone who knows her. Thomas graduating from law school, Henry's wedding, Will looking so proud in both photos that he looks years younger, his eyes twinkling like they did when she first met him.

Then there's Caroline, almost four and the apple of Will's eye from the day she was born, her big eyes and soft brown curls ensuring whatever she wanted from her grandpa. The photo of them together on the shelf takes her breath away for a second, Caroline's smile so like Will's, her eyes just like Henry's. She's so thankful Will was here for their first grandchild, but there's a sadness too that Caroline is too little to remember him, that she won't have him there as she grows up. In the photo she's holding his hand and Mackenzie hopes she knows that he would have always held her hand, as often and as tightly as she needed him to.

Some days she thinks she's doing ok, all things considered, and other days are so difficult, with every little thing reminding her that he's gone. Today feels like one of those days. When her father died, she remembers her mother telling her it felt like a deep cut, and just as it seemed to be trying to heal she would catch it on something and it would reopen, starting to bleed all over again. For Mackenzie, she likens it to the scar on her abdomen. It no longer feels like it did when she was first stabbed years ago, but more like how it feels in the cold, a constant ache, a peculiar numbness she has become accustomed to living with.

Running a finger over his smiling face, she sets the frame back down on the shelf and reaches for the crate, pulling it out onto the floor and lowering herself down to sit beside it. It's the first time in almost eight months that she's opening the lid, but she feels so lonely now in the kitchen each morning that she has it in her head that she needs a big frame with a selection of photos in there, that maybe it will help, maybe she'll be able to face eating breakfast if he's there with her.

There are wallets of photos, envelopes, some just piled neatly and tied with elastic. She picks out the top two wallets, and opens the first one to see a photo of the two of them at the Correspondents Dinner. It was the year after he swore they'd never go again, just before they got married, mere days before it felt like all hell was breaking loose for a while. God, he was handsome, standing beside her in his tuxedo, his arm around her waist, her head leaning in towards his. She looks at the smiles on their faces, the pink flush in her cheeks, her slightly unruly hair which had started off so neatly until he'd seen her in her new dress and insisted they had some time before they needed to leave...she'd give anything now to have him back, to have him look at her that way again.

Closing her eyes, she tries to blink away the tears she feels approaching, swallowing hard, determined not to put the lid back on the crate, not again. Taking a deep breath, she puts the photo aside as a possibility for her frame and reaches back into the wallet. What her fingers land on is not another photo, but a piece of paper, folded in half and when she opens it she hears herself gasp as she sees his writing on the page.

_If I'm still kicking around when you find this, come and find me...I'll tease you for your obsession with this box and your damn photos, you can tease me for being a fucking old sap who leaves you notes._

_If I've fallen off my perch already by the time you find this, I hope you're missing me. I'm kidding, of course you'll be missing me, so I hope this helps, I hate to think of you without your smile. If it doesn't help, fold it back up and pretend you never saw it. Go outside, hug our boys, make sure Caroline learns to ride a bike, drink coffee, write a book (your memoirs would be spectacular)._

_I love you, my Mackenzie. Always have, always will. x_

Damn him. Just fucking damn him. Why isn't he in the next room so she can go and yell at him for his sappy note? Why isn't he here so he can watch Caroline learn to ride a bike? Why does she have to do this alone now? All of it, living, being, trying to carry on, pretending she's fine, desperately trying to fill her days, begging for sleep at night, wishing for his hand to hold, for his warm body to snuggle against when she's cold.

She remembers a time when she wasn't crying almost daily, or she thinks she does, it seems so long ago. Gratitude hasn't entirely passed her by, she knows he lived a long life, a happy one, and that they were lucky to have so long together, to have two beautiful sons, and now a granddaughter; but none of that stops her wishing he was still here.

She takes one more look at the note before folding it carefully and opening the top drawer of the desk to place it gently inside.

Me too, Billy. Always.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It's been a year. The seasons have changed, the leaves dropped from the trees, the snow fell, shoots of green started to peek out through the ground, the sun came back out. All of it without him._

**One Year, Three Days**

It's been a year. The seasons have changed, the leaves dropped from the trees, the snow fell, shoots of green started to peek out through the ground, the sun came back out. All of it without him.

She wonders how a lifetime with him could have passed by so quickly, yet one year alone has felt like forever. She has a routine now, it gets her through the days, the weeks, and it has unwittingly allowed her to make it through a whole year. On Wednesdays she goes to the movies with Sloan, they drink coffee before, they eat dinner after. Could she name any of the films they've seen? Probably not, but the films aren't really the point, the point is she has something to do on Wednesdays, she gets to see Sloan, she goes outside, joins in with the rest of the world.

“You see, Will, I go outside now, I drink coffee, I always hug our boys, and when Caroline is a tiny bit bigger, I'll watch her ride her bike. I'm thinking about the other thing, ok?”

She's been talking to him a lot lately, she can't really pinpoint why, other than it has been so long since he's been here, since she's been able to feel his physical presence, that she needs something more. He hasn't started talking back so she's fairly certain her sanity is still intact, for the moment anyway. Two weeks ago she went shopping and found herself buying five tins of mints, something she hasn't done in months, not since she picked them up one day and realised what she was doing, putting them back with an inexplicable feeling of guilt. Will gave up smoking way back when she was pregnant with Thomas, replacing the nicotine with mints, and it was a habit he never managed to break, one that saw her routinely buying mints without a thought whenever she was shopping.

They have another grandchild now too, a beautiful boy with his mother's eyes and his father's chin, Will's chin. Cameron William McAvoy, who was born three weeks ago, a little early, almost as though he knew they all needed something positive, something to pull the focus from the anniversary they were dreading. On the day itself, she held her new grandson and sat quietly with him, looking into his eyes, hoping Will could somehow see him, wishing so badly that he could be here for this, sitting with her, the baby snuggled in his safe hands.

She collects Caroline from school on Mondays and they spend a few hours together, eating dinner before her mother finishes work and comes to pick her up. Caroline is a sweet, loving child, constantly inquisitive, and when Mackenzie is with her, she finds herself smiling properly as she answers her sometimes bizarre questions, laughing at her reactions. Will would have adored her, even more than he did already, and sometimes she catches Mackenzie off guard by asking about Will just as she's thinking of him. She doesn't know if Caroline remembers him, or if they talk about him and show her his picture enough that perhaps she just thinks she does. One day she looked up from the jigsaw puzzle they were doing together, a small frown on her face as she said “Grandma, I think Grandpa should come back now. Do you?”

Nodding, she had managed a choked “I do, sweetie, I really do,” before kissing her granddaughter's earnest little face and asking if she thought cookies and milk sounded like a good idea.

The new baby makes her think once again about the passage of time, about the legacies people leave behind. Will has years and years of footage, a collection of newspaper columns, and a reputation as one of the finest anchors in TV history. She has some long hidden overseas footage, the knowledge that she helped to make ACN a successful and worthwhile news network, and two Peabody awards. She wants more. She wants something for Caroline and Cameron, something for when she's no longer around, she wants them to know about their grandparents, how well they worked together to make something really good, and how there are so many other people whose names should be shouted from the rooftops.

“Alright, Will.” She sighs one evening, looking at his photo beside the bed. “I don't know if I can promise spectacular but I'll write the damn book.”

 

**Two Years, Four Months**

She isn't surprised that he knew this would be good for her, he knew her so well, and he was more than aware that she was better able to cope with anything when she was busy, when there was a project requiring her attention. God though, she really hadn't thought about how hard this would be, taking herself back almost fifty years and accessing memories long dormant.

Before she begins, she researches, she speaks to people who have written books, she researches some more, and when she can put it off not a moment longer, she sits down and starts to write. She sets a schedule, her Wednesdays are still with Sloan, Monday afternoons with Caroline, and Sundays at Thomas's house with the whole family; the rest of the time, she writes. At first she writes everything down. Literally _everything_ , ridiculously elaborate details that nobody will care about but her, until one day she finds herself crying over something only she and Will ever knew about and she takes it out. She saves it into a separate document, because she can't bear to delete anything, irrationally afraid that the memory in her head will go with it. There are so many stories to tell, so much to write, and there are moments when she struggles, not to remember, she remembers everything, she simply can't always type fast enough.

It's been more than two years and she still misses him, some days every bit as much as she did on day one. In so many ways the writing is helping, she can picture so clearly some of the times she's writing about, for certain broadcasts she can even remember exactly what Will was wearing and if they went out for drinks after the show. There are sections that are proving a challenge though, she has to stop on numerous occasions covering her time in the Middle East, it feels oddly more painful now than it did years ago. She makes it through the stabbing surprisingly easily, almost as though she's writing fiction, but she stutters over her PTSD diagnosis and her arrival back home, because underneath it all is Will. What she did to him, how she hurt him, how it so easily could have cost them everything. She gets angry with herself because it was so, so long ago and such a tiny part of their lifelong story that she doesn't know why she's feeling like this. Maybe because when he was still here, she showed him every day how much he meant to her and now she can't do that it feels raw again, almost like living through it a second time over.

She takes a break and puts the kettle on for tea, standing in the kitchen looking out of the window, waiting for her mind to stop racing, waiting for her rational self to wrestle back control. He forgave her, he loved her, he never threw it back at her, not once in thirty seven years of marriage, and she needs to keep remembering that. Turning back to the fridge, her gaze lands on one of the photos stuck to it with a huge magnet, of the two of them with Thomas when he was really tiny, and her mum beside them, looking proud enough to burst. It's funny how, even as she approaches eighty, she wishes so often she could call her mum, just to hear her voice soothing her from thousands of miles away as it always did.

She stares at Will in the photo, Thomas so small in his arms as he holds him like a precious gem, and she has to sit down, her legs suddenly not quite strong enough to hold her up. Most days she can do this, she can be alone with her thoughts and she can contain them, but today it seems like too much to ask so she sits down, her eyes still on the photo.

"I'm trying. Billy," she whispers, aware of the kettle starting to boil. "I'm really trying, but just for now I need to sit here and cry, and I don't want any raised eyebrow crap from you. Do you hear me?"

She doesn't know if hears her, but she has to hope, to believe he can, because she needs to have faith that he's still with her somehow, that he's waiting for her, hopefully drinking scotch with Charlie, talking about sports. Without that to hold onto, she doesn't know how she would get through each day.

Jim is the one in the end who coaches her through the next section of the book, asking her when she calls him to send over what she's written so far and he'll do whatever he can to fill in the gaps, dutifully keeping his promise and sending it back two hours later. His one condition is that Maggie insists she take a break the next evening to have dinner with them, which she of course agrees to.

Genoa is difficult, but she gets through it, and even it does take everything she has not to make herself the culprit, she manages and she _knows_ Will would be proud of her for that. She writes about Kundu, about Neal, the FBI raid on the newsroom, Will being subpoenaed at the Correspondents Dinner, all of it fresh in her mind like it was yesterday.

She thanks God every day that her mind is still sharp, that her memories are clear. So clear that she wonders if it would be easier were things a little foggy, if she wasn't able to picture the tiniest of details.

When she writes about their wedding she can't help but smile because although she didn't know it at the time, she loves to be able to look back with the knowledge that as they said their vows a tiny cluster of cells were working hard inside her body, preparing for what would be their little Thomas. She writes with sheer pride about Will's time in prison, about how she never once questioned his decision not to reveal the source, even as they both struggled with him being locked up, not knowing when he would be coming home. She had long known by that point how much she admired Will's principles, his strength of character, but she was never more proud of him than during those weeks, refusing to yield no matter what deal he was offered.

Charlie's death is her next stumbling block, as she knew it would be back when she was writing about him bringing her to ACN, reminded with every word just how important he was in their lives, and wishing not for the first time that her boys had been able to know him. In the end she sticks to the facts; he was strong, proud and battling to keep ACN on the right path in the face of Lucas Pruit. She doesn't shy away from the events of the night he died, even though guilt runs through her veins like ice water, and she still remembers the sound as he fell to the floor, remembers leaning over him and silently praying for him to be ok as she rode with him in the ambulance.

By the time she covers her time as president, News Night's continuing success under Jim's tenure, and Will's eventual retirement, she's exhausted, completely and utterly spent, feeling like she's lived her whole life again in the fifteen months she's been writing the book. She no longer thinks she would care if not a single soul bought it, she's just so relieved to have finished it, to have everything on paper, and she so badly wants Thomas and Henry to read it.

Two days after her seventy seventh birthday, she finally types the last word. Opening a blank page, she has one more thing to write.

_For my Billy. Always have, always will. x_

 

**Seven Years**

She's tired now.

Every day, she's tired, the kind of real bone aching tiredness she's known a few times before. As an embed, afraid to sleep because every second was so valuable if they suddenly need to haul out of wherever they were, equipment and all, meaning she barely slept at all and came home more exhausted than she ever thought possible. Then later, as a new mother, when neither baby would sleep more than two hours at a time, leaving her so exhausted she struggled to remember her own name in the mornings yet somehow managed to make it through board meetings and endless wrangling with Pruit.

She still doesn't really sleep at night but these days she sometimes falls asleep in the day (making her feel like the old lady she reluctantly admits to being), and she dreams about Will so often now that waking up serves only as yet another stark reminder that she's alone, that he's been gone for seven long years.

Her book was a success, just like everyone had insisted it would be, selling more copies than she could have imagined and sitting at the top of the best seller list for three months. She's pleased with it, of course she is, but she hasn't opened a single copy since the day she finished it, she doesn't see the need to. Her boys read it and reacted in the ways she fully expected they would; Thomas quietly appreciative, kissing her cheek as he told her how proud he was of her, Henry coming to tell her he loved it, then following up with a list of questions.

She has four grandchildren now, four more beautiful little McAvoys. There are Henry's three; Caroline, Cameron, and Eliza, while Thomas has one, a boy, Sam, who looks so like Thomas did at his age that it takes Mackenzie's breath away every time she sees him. She loves them all so much, she sees herself in them, she sees her sons in them, both of her daughters-in-law, and she sees so much of Will too. In their eyes, their smiles, their personalities, and sometimes it's almost too much to take when she thinks of him never having known three of them at all. In the bedroom, there is a photo of all four of them, taken in the snow, their faces pink from the cold, their smiles infectious, and Will's photo sits alongside the frame. She likes to think he's watching over them, smiling back, and although she's not unaware that this could be a touch of insanity on her part, it gives her hope, so crazy can be damned, it's worth it.

It's funny now people say time is a healer, because it really isn't. It's a mild anaesthetic, perhaps, the kind they use before they put stitches in, that blocks out the agony but doesn't stop you feeling every little pull on your skin, from a distance or as though it's happening through a filter. She doesn't think anything could ever take away that pull, and she really wouldn't want it to. She was married to Will for thirty seven years and she's been in love with him now for more than fifty. She doesn't want to get over him, she wants to be with him again, wants to hold his hand, touch his face, look into the eyes she still misses so much every single day.

Henry comes over on Saturday mornings and they take a walk, her arm looped through his as they stroll through the park, stopping for coffee and pastries before heading back. Sometimes they walk in silence and she's happy just to spend time with him, to be outdoors with one of the great loves of her life. Other times they talk and talk, about the children, about Will, about Henry's work, sometimes he tells her he has reread something in her book and he has questions. She jokes about it being blatantly clear where Caroline's inquisitive streak comes from, but she's always happy to expand on what she wrote when he asks. She has long realised it's a large part of the reason she wrote the book at all.

Last week he asked about the Genoa broadcast, told her he had found it online and watched it after reading that section again and said it was like hearing her words falling from Will's lips. She had smiled and told him that they had written it together, like they so often did with the bigger stories, but that she never could have delivered it like his father did. He asks about her time on camera, if she ever missed it, and she's honest with him, telling him she could never have imagined being in front of a camera at all if she hadn't have ended up overseas. So...no, she didn't miss it, once she was back in the control room at News Night she knew she was where she was meant to be, pushing Will to be the best he could be and doing a show they were both proud of.

They're almost at the coffee shop when he stops and turns to her, his expression one of curiosity as it often is, but this time there is concern in his eyes.

"You okay, sweetie?" she asks, squeezing his arm.

"Yeah." He nods to the door ahead of them. "You ready for coffee?"

They're sitting down, mugs of coffee warming their hands, pastries in front of them, when he takes a breath and smiles at her.

"Out with it, Henry." She smiles. "I'm an old woman, I don't have forever."

"I know you're always happy to answer anything, but..." He pauses briefly. "I've never asked about when you were stabbed, and if you don't want to talk about that, then-"

"What do you want to know?" she asks, reaching for a pastry and breaking off a piece, popping it into her mouth as she waits for him to continue.

"I don't exactly want to _know_ anything, as such," he says. "I just...I don't think I realised, until the book, just how bad it was, Mom."

"I think I was probably guilty of glossing over it." She takes a drink, looking over her mug at him. "It wasn't...it wasn't a good time for me, but it happened, it was a long time ago, but it was...it was really hard for your dad, he felt terribly guilty about it for a long time."

"But Mom, you nearly died." Henry stops, shaking his head as she smiles at him.

"I know that, I was there." Her smile fades as she remembers waking up in hospital, hoping against all hope to find Will sitting there, the disappointment almost crushing her. "I didn't though, did I? They stitched me up, left me with a nice big scar and sent me on my way."

"And Dad?" he asks, warily.

"You know this part, Henry," she answers. "It wasn't his fault, but he always felt I wouldn't have been over there at all if he hadn't...if we hadn't broken up, and he really struggled with that. It wasn't until you and Thomas came along that I think he was able to really let go of his guilt."

"What do you mean?" Henry frowns at her.

"Maybe I glossed over that a little too," she says, sheepishly. "After I was stabbed, the doctors told me they couldn't be sure but they thought it might be incredibly difficult for me to get pregnant, if not impossible. At the time I really didn't care, I wasn't with your father, I didn't think there was a chance of us getting back together and I didn't want...I never wanted children with anyone but him, so I just resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn't be a mother."

"Oh Mom." He reaches over to squeeze her hand.

"It's okay," she says, remembering so clearly the day she told Will after they got engaged that she didn't think she could have a baby, feeling so much that it was her fault, that what she'd done had set in motion the chain of events leading to her revelation. "Clearly the doctors underestimated your father's swimmers."

"Oh God." Henry shakes his head and reaches for the pastries.

"Sorry." Mackenzie smiles at his embarrassment before she goes on. "Anyway, that's why I really didn't put two and two together right away while your dad was in prison, I thought it was stress, anxiety, so when the doctor called to say I was pregnant, well, surprised is a bloody big understatement. I thought your poor dad was going to keel over when I told him. Then after Thomas was born and they said that since it had happened once there was no real reason why it shouldn't happen again, I knew right away I wanted another baby, if I could."

"So I should be counting my lucky stars that the second time was a charm?" he asks, smiling at her.

"I'm the lucky one, Henry," she says quietly. "I went from single to engaged to pregnant within six months, and if that wasn't enough, within two years I had you too. My two gorgeous boys...not bad for someone who was told it might not happen even once."

"I'm glad they were wrong." He smiles at her, his eyes warm, crinkling around the edges just like her own. "Obviously."

"So am I, sweetheart. So glad." Reaching for his hand, she grabs onto him, holding on tight for a few seconds. "You know how much I love you, don't you? Both of you. And how much your dad loved you too, and how proud we both are. You do know that, don't you?"

"Of course," he says, a slightly bemused smile on his face. "Mom, we both know that, I promise."

"Okay." She nods. "Good, I just...good, I wanted to make sure you knew, that's all. Now, finish that coffee so we can get moving before I seize up entirely and end up stuck in this chair for good."

Saturday nights give her the closest thing to a decent sleep all week, she thinks it's a combination of the walk and the fresh air. It's also the night she dreams most clearly, last night Will told her he loved her, ticked her off for only eating properly when one of their sons makes sure that she does, and told her he misses her eyes looking into his. In the dream she laughed and told him he was a great big sap but when she reached for him, the dream was broken and she woke up feeling every single one of her eighty two years, her eyes landing on his photo as they do every morning.

_Soon, my love. Soon_.

 

**A Lifetime**

For fifty six years she's loved him, thirty seven of those in marriage, eleven without him.

Two children, four grandchildren, countless broadcasts, two Peabody awards, years of newspaper columns, a book. A busy life, a full life, a good life, she has so much to be proud of and to be thankful for.

And Love. So much love.

She opens her eyes on a cold November morning, blinking in confusion when her gaze meets Will's, his blue eyes fixed firmly on hers. Tentatively reaching up, her hand comes to rest on his face, and when she finds his skin warm to her touch, soft under her fingers, she sighs in the knowledge that she won't have to miss him any longer.

_Hello again, beautiful...took you long enough._


End file.
